Anti-Syrian regime protesters hold Syrian revolution flags during a rally marking the anniversary of the 1946 withdrawal of French troops from Syria on Wednesday. / Aleppo Media Center via AP

by Barbara Surk, Associated Press

by Barbara Surk, Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian rebels captured large parts of a military base in the strategic Homs province on Thursday as opposition fighters try to expand territory under their control near the Lebanese border, activists said.

The central region is important to President Bashar Assad because it links Damascus, his seat of power, with one of his main allies, the militant Hezbollah group in neighboring Lebanon.

The latest rebel advances came a day after Assad accused the West of backing al-Qaeda in Syria's 2-year-old conflict. In a rare TV interview, Assad also lashed out at Jordan for allowing "thousands" of fighters to enter Syria to fight in the civil war.

In recent months, the rebels have chipped away at the regime's hold in northern and eastern Syria. They have also made significant gains in the south, in the area between Damascus and the Jordanian border, helped in part by a recent influx of foreign-funded weapons across the boundary.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said the opposition fighters took control of most of the Dabaa military complex in Homs province on Thursday morning, after weeks of fighting with government forces for control of the facility. Sporadic fighting was still being reported in some parts of the base, the Observatory said.

Dabaa is a former air force base and has an airfield, which hasn't been used since the fighting broke out. Instead, the army has based ground troops in the facility to fight the rebels, the Observatory said. It did not say how many - if any - government troops were at the base when it was overrun by rebels.

The base is located near Qusair, a contested central Syrian town near a key highway between Damascus and the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria's Alawite community. The area also is home to the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.

Syria's regime is dominated by the president's minority Alawite sect - an offshoot of Shiite Islam - while the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad are mostly from the country's Sunni majority. Assad's major allies, Hezbollah and Iran, are both Shiite.

Homs province was the site of some of the heaviest fighting during the first year of the Syrian conflict, which erupted in March 2011, and intermittent episodes of violence since.

Syria's crisis began as peaceful protests against Assad's rule and turned into civil war after some opposition supporters took up arms to fight a harsh government crackdown. The fighting that has taken increasingly sectarian overtones.

Syrian officials deny there is an uprising, accusing those who have turned against the government of being foreign-backed terrorists and Islamic extremists.

In the interview with the government-run Al-Ikhbariya TV, Assad said the West has backed al-Qaida in his country's civil war and warned that it will pay a price "in the heart" of Europe and the United States as the terror network becomes emboldened. The interview was aired on Wednesday to mark Syria's independence day.

The U.S. and its European and Gulf allies have backed the opposition in the Syrian conflict and have repeatedly called on Assad to step down.

Extremist groups, such as the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, are gaining ground in Syria's conflict. Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, has emerged as the most effective force among the mosaic of rebel units fighting against Assad's troops.

Washington has designated Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization. The Obama administration opposes directly arming Syrian opposition fighters, in part out of fear that the weapons could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Israel shares Washington's concerns. In an interview with the BBC that aired on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish state has "the right to act to prevent that from happening."

Netanyahu said in the interview that Israel fears that Syrian chemical weapons or sophisticated anti-aircraft system the rebels seek to counter the regime's superior airpower will fall in the hands of al-Qaida militants or Hezbollah.

"Obviously we're concerned that that the weapons that are groundbreaking and could change the balance of power in the Middle East would fall into the hands of these terrorists," Netanyahu said.

In January, Israel all but confirmed that it carried out an airstrike in Syria that destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles allegedly bound to Hezbollah. The movement fought Israeli army to a standstill in a monthlong 2006 war in Lebanon. Netanyahu refused in the interview to confirm whether Israel targeted the convoy.

Earlier this year, the U.S. announced a $60 million non-lethal assistance package for Syria that includes meals and medical supplies for the armed opposition.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress that the Pentagon is sending about 200 soldiers from an Army headquarters unit to Jordan to assist efforts to contain violence along the Syrian border and plan for any operations needed to ensure the safety of chemical weapons in Syria.

The decision to dispatch the 1st Armored Division troops of planners and specialists in intelligence, logistics and operations, came after several lawmakers pressed the Obama administration for even more aggressive steps to end the two-year civil war.

Even the most modest efforts by the international community to end the bloodshed in Syria have failed.

The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to receive an open briefing on the humanitarian, refugee and human rights crises in Syria later Thursday.

The joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, is to brief the council behind closed doors on Friday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dismissed speculation that Brahimi will resign his post, saying on Wednesday he will continue to work as the joint special representative, stressing the importance that the U.N. work with the Arab League.

Syria's "prospects may seem dim," the secretary-general said, "but I remain convinced that a political solution is possible."

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